Campaign for flexible work

ALL workers who care for children, elderly parents or incapacitated partners would have the right to ask their employer for flexible hours and to seek arbitration if they were refused under changes to workplace laws to be endorsed by the union movement on Wednesday.

The ACTU president, Ged Kearney, is pressing the Gillard government to back the reforms.

The ACTU executive will also pass a resolution demanding the government set up an inquiry into discrimination against pregnant women or those returning to work from maternity leave.

Pushing the Gillard government to give family carers greater rights in the workplace ... Ged Kearney. Photo: Alex Ellinghausen

Employers bitterly oppose the move, saying the current provisions are ''working well''.

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The Fair Work Act review panel recommended the government broaden access to the right to request part-time work to a wider range of caring responsibilities, but did not recommend dispute resolution provisions for workers who are rejected.

In a recent speech the Ai Group chief executive, Innes Willox, insisted there was no need to change the current laws.

''Every day in hundreds of workplaces requests for flexible work arrangements are made and granted,'' he said. ''In the vast majority of cases the provisions of the act are not needed or used. Most employers try very hard to accommodate reasonable requests from their employees for flexible work arrangements.''

Ms Kearney told Fairfax Media there were ''no hard and fast statistics about people getting knocked back, but anecdotally this is a huge issue for parents, for people caring for their parents and especially for women''.

The Employment Minister, Bill Shorten, has indicated he will consider the Fair Work review's recommended extension of scope in the second round of amendments to the act next year.